Born in Tainan, Taiwan, 1984
Currently lives and works in Taipei, Taiwan
About Chen Ching-Yuan.
Born in 1984 in Tainan, Taiwan, Chen currently lives and works in Taipei. He received his M.F.A. from the Taipei National University of the Arts and is active in the international art scene.
Chen Ching-Yuan’s figurative paintings employ a methodology of overlapping documentary imagery with poetic imagination. By capturing abstract perceptions triggered by everyday landscapes, events, political symbols, and human gestures, he composes dreamlike, allegorical scenes. Through brushwork that retains gestural traces and texture, alongside specific arrangements of light, shadow, and color, Chen deconstructs and re-encodes historical imagery. His work sensitively renders the subtle ambiguities situated between clarity and the unknown, presence and absence, while continuously questioning the mechanisms of social and political narratives. These constructed "tableaux" reveal how personal and collective memories and histories are shaped and contested. Consequently, the figures’ postures and the scenes within are suspended in a state of indeterminacy, resisting closure within a single narrative.
Chen’s notable solo exhibitions include Drawing Fold, TKG+, Taipei, Taiwan (2025); Night Walking Square, Mor Charpentier, Bogota, Columbia(2024), The ship of these-us, Mor Charpentier, Paris, France(2022); PAGES (2021–20), TKG+, Taipei, Taiwan (2021); The Brick and Timber, White Cube, Online Viewing Room (2021); Card Stunt, Mor Charpentier, Paris, France (2019); The Spider on Ship, ITPARK, Taipei, Taiwan (2017).
He has exhibited internationally, including The Three-Legged Cat — Istanbul Biennial, Istanbul, Turkey (2025), Art Basel, Messe Basel, Basel, Switzerland (2025), Small World— Taipei Biennial, Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Taipei, Taiwan (2023), Yes, Taiwan — 2016 Taiwan Biennial, National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, Taichung, Taiwan (2016), the 8th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane, Australia (2015); Asia Triennial Manchester, Manchester, U.K. (2014).